Tech

Is Microsoft Becoming the Do-Over Company?

At first glance, it looked like the big thing Microsoft revealed to its developers in San Francisco is week was Windows 8.1, the first major update to Windows 8.

The real new product on display, however, was humility.

Through some of the changes in Windows 8.1 and other course corrections it's made recently, Microsoft is becoming notorious for retreating on key decisions. What does that mean for the company and its vision of the future? And what does that mean for its millions of customers?

The Windows 8.1 update has many new features, but those reversals were the things that stood out, including the return of the Start button and a “boot to Desktop” option that lets users bypass the busy, touch-friendly Start screen and go right into traditional Windows. Both garnered applause from the audience when CEO Steve Ballmer mentioned them in his keynote at Build 2013, even though they'd been announced weeks before.

While Microsoft needed time to create Windows 8.1's new features (like the search “heroes”) and refine others (like multi-window Snap), there was no reason it couldn’t have had the Start button and boot-to-Desktop mode in Windows 8. Microsoft has been clear that a key part of Windows 8.1 has been responding to feedback, and users demanded those resets.

Users complaining about changes in software is nothing new, of course, and companies sometimes even listen and make course corrections based on that feedback. However, the frequency and speed with which Microsoft has been changing direction lately makes one wonder if Ballmer has a weathervane on his desk tied directly into Twitter and Reddit.

Even before Windows 8.1 was first leaked and announced, you could see the rapid-response approach forming. When Windows 8 launched, IE10 in the modern UI had a special flavor of Flash — one that would guarantee a good experience (with minimal battery drain for portables) but would also only work with sites that Microsoft had pre-screened. In March, Microsoft abandoned that approach, in part due to negative user feedback.

Earlier this month, we saw the granddaddy of Microsoft reversals with the Xbox One. After first declaring that owners of the coming game console wouldn’t be able to re-sell or give away games — or even play them while offline — Microsoft quickly nixed that plan after a Pacific Rim-scale backlash. Pre-owned games would work for the Xbox One the same way they did with the Xbox 360, Microsoft said. It might have also punctuated it with, “Our bad.”

In each of Microsoft’s do-overs, you can at least see the thinking behind its original approach. Whether it’s minimalist design that obviates the need for a Start button or an all-digital strategy aimed at building new experiences around games (and facilitating subscriptions), you can see how Microsoft was trying to aim far, to show it understood — or at least had a clear vision of — the future.

So what does it mean for that vision when Microsoft backpedals? Is Microsoft projecting too far ahead with its strategy, forcing upon us a world that’s all touch, always connected, tied into our identity, where all data and content exists in the cloud — a world that perhaps we’re not quite ready to embrace 100%? Or is it simply not executing well enough in the details of that strategy?

Or is the problem with users? Should we be less knee-jerk and fearful of change? While some aspects of Microsoft’s vision are compelling, they require letting go of the old ways of doing things. Would customers be better served by a more Steve Jobs-esque approach that assumes the creator knows better than the user?

For all the anguish caused by some of Microsoft’s decisions and subsequent reversals, they show the company is making real progress toward some vision of the future, even if that future keeps shifting out of focus. As the old saying goes, if you’re not making somebody angry, you’re probably not doing anything noteworthy.

Mashable
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